Researchers could adopt the “pretty” approach, in which they devote a great deal of time and effort to developing a technique or machine that will allow them to test their ideas with exact measurements that yield final definitive answers. Or a researcher could try the “quick and dirty” way, moving forward with an idea as soon as a rather rudimentary test indicates it will probably work. Noyce believed that the quick-and-dirty method generated “90 percent of the answer in 10 percent of the time.”
